D 517 
.C534 
Copy I 



The World's 

Debt to 
Great Britain 




ADDRESS OF 
SAMUEL HARDEN CHURCH, 

On Britain's Day 



The World's 

Debt to 
Great Britain 




ADDRESS OF 
SAMUEL HARDEN CHURCH, 

On Britain's Day 



AT THE PITTSBURGH EXPOSITION, 
SATURDAY EVENING, 
DECEMBER 7, 1918 



^ 






By TTWiTmTtT 

im 8 1919 



\. 



What is this thing — this glorious 
thing — that you call the British Em- 
pire? What is it that gives England, 
which is the heart of this British Em- 
pire, — or, as we might call her in our 
modem phrase, the British Common- 
wealth of P^ee Nations— what is it that 
gives her the spirit of eternal youth, 
her unconquerable strength, her power 
to adapt herself to the progressive 
needs of human society in every age^ 
When we survey her history we think of 
her as Shakespeare said of Cleopatra, 
Age cannot wither nor custom stale 
her mfinite variety." 

The world is grateful to Great Britain 
for the qualities of her national charac- 
ter. England's chivalry, her love of 
sports her sense of fair play, her sacred 
regard for womanhood, her tender care 
of children, her love of justice, her 
preservation of the rights of property 
and of the landmarks of her neigh- 
^2^1^~~^^1 ^^^se things are characteristic 
ot the nation as they are of the citizens 
who compose the nation, and wherever 
the people of Great Britain may go to 
found new homes they carry these 
qualities with them to make a better 
citizenship and a richer humanity 
throughout the world. 

Another thing we are grateful for is 
the high quality of imagination which 
has given to English literature a charm 
and power and influence which is un- 
equalled by anything that has ever been 
produced in the literature of ancient or 
modem times. And England has only 
to take that mighty army of immortals, 
with Shakespeare at their head, includ- 
ing Chaucer, Byron and Tennyson ; her 
historians, Macaulay and Freeman and 
Gardiner; her scientists like Huxley 
and Darwin and Spencer; her orators, 
like Burke and Pitt and Sheridan— she 
has only to take these men and compare 
them with the best men whom Germany 
has ever produced in order to demon- 
strate that the highest intellectual cul- 
ture which the world possesses, or has 
ever possessed, is not Germanic but is 
purely British. 

And then, more than all, we are 
grateful because Great Britain went 
into this war. She was not prepared 
for it and the gallant band of heroes 
whom the Kaiser described as "a con- 



temptible little army," were strong 
enough to hold back the mighty onrush 
of German savages until the startled 
world could organize its powers into 
an effective resistance. 

In this hour of triumph I want to 
congratulate you upon the possession 
of a great Prime Minister — one of the 
ablest men that this conflict has pro- 
duced. You will remember that last 
Spring, in the dark hours of Germany's 
final offensive, when Mr. Lloyd George 
was defending himself against the ex- 
traordinary attack of General Maurice, 
an attack which seemed to base itself 
upon the policy of the British Govern- 
ment in keeping troops in Mesopotamia 
and Egypt, which General Maurice 
seemed to think should be employed in 
France, the Premier based his eloquent 
defense upon a classical precedent: — 
"There was a great empire,'' he said, 
which withdrew its legions from the 
outlying provinces of the empire to de- 
fend its heart against the Goths, and 
those legions never went back." Mr. 
Lloyd George referred to the Roman 
Empire, and this is what happened. 
When the barbarous Germans who in- 
habited the forests stretching across 
Europe to the north of Italy — not near- 
ly so barbarous, nor nearly so savage as 
the German armies of our own times — 
when these barbarous hordes undertook 
to destroy the best civilization of their 
day, as their successors have under- 
taken to destroy the best civilization of 
our day, Rome drew in her armies from 
Spain, France, Mesopotamia and Brit- 
ain. As Mr. Lloyd George says, those 
armies never went back. The occur- 
rence marked the decline and fall of 
the Roman Empire, and your Prime 
Minister was great enough to place the 
vision which came to him through his 
historic knowledge against the techni- 
cal judgment of those great soldiers of 
the general staff, and the end showed 
that the Prime Minister was right and 
the soldiers were wrong, when the con- 
quest of Mesopotamia and Palestine 
forced the surrender of Turkey and 
Bulgaria and caused Austria to throw 
up her hands and cry for peace. 

But what is the particular service 
which England has done in the world 
which justified her in defending her 



Empire today against the barbarian 
hordes of Germany ? I am going to try 
to answer that. Two huge institutions 
have existed in Europe through many 
centuries and down to this present mo- 
ment which have enormously oppressed 
mankind and restricted human prog- 
ress. These institutions are feudalism 
in the state and feudalism in the church. 
Please remember that I am not attack- 
ing anybody or anything. I am stating 
historic facts. In Russia you see at 
their worst the wicked fruits of these 
twin evils — a mighty nation standing 
in the sunlight of liberty but unable 
to see the wonderful beauty of life be- 
cause their former masters have 
blinded their eyes with darkness. And 
what is England's record? Why is she 
called the Mother of Parliaments ? Why 
is it that the Morning Star of the Refor- 
mation rose in dazzling brilliance and 
audacity in England a hundred years 
before it became visible in any other 
sky? It is because all the political 
and religious liberty which the world 
enjoys today have had their birth in 
that island. That is why some people 
hate her so much. And when, seven 
hundred years ago, an arrogant Eng- 
lish sovereign. King John, persisted in 
over-riding the liberties of his people, 
they wrested from him Magna Charta 
— the Mighty Charter — which has been 
the basis of civil liberty throughout 
England and America from that day to 
this. Right here, we see the meaning of 
English liberty by contrast, for when, 
in the time of King John, the Barons 
federated with the people for liberty 
against the King, in our time the Ger- 
man Barons federated with the Kaiser 
for autocracy against the people. It was 
a hard struggle, this fight for civil and 
religious liberty in England. They 
adopted thirty statutes after King 
John's time trying to preserve and de- 
fend it, but it was not until Oliver Crom- 
well came up from his farm at Hunting- 
don and made himself the master spirit 
of the British people that, once for all, 
autocracy in state and church was 
crushed throughout the British domin- 
ions forever. 

Let me show you a contrast between 
a civilized and humane nation, and a 
nation which Goethe characterized as 



"ferocious brutes." You have seen 
that picture in Punch where the British 
lion stands on a mound emitting a roar 
which only a lion can emit, a roar which 
comes from the depths of his nature, 
and from every quarter of the globe his 
cubs respond — Australia, New Zealand, 
Canada, India, Egypt. Why do they do 
that? How was it with Germany? 
When the first blast of war blew on our 
ears, when Germany had been ruling 
those French provinces for half a cen- 
tury, fifty thousand of the men of Al- 
sace and Lorraine gave up home and 
property and fled across the border to 
range themselves . under the only flag 
their hearts could ever recognize, the 
ancient oriflamme of France. Not a man 
who could escape the impressment 
would fight for Germany. Let us not 
forget to praise France, in Shakes- 
peare's phrase, as true today as when 
it was uttered in the play of King John : 
"France, whose armor conscience buck- 
led on, whom zeal and charity brought 
into the field, as God's own soldier." 
And take England once more. She had 
conquered South Africa and given the 
Boers a complete Hberty and self-gov- 
ernment of which they had never 
dreamed in the days of their own ty- 
rant, Paul Kruger. But here was their 
chance to revolt. Did they take it? 
When they saw peril approaching that 
precious heritage of human government 
which has been expanding itself 
throughout the world from the day 
when the Mighty Charter was estab- 
lished on British soil at Runnymede, 
the last Boer turned from his farm and 
his mine and joined the fight for lib- 
erty under the British flag. Wherever 
the German armies have entered a for- 
eign city during this war why is it that 
the people have wailed and gnashed 
their teeth? And when the British 
armies have captured the citadels of 
their enemies, as at Bagdad and Jeru- 
salem and Damascus, why is it that 
the people have greeted them with 
shouts of welcome and rejoicing? It 
is because in one case you have an 
army of murderers and in the other an 
army of chivalrous soldiers. Do you 
want further proof? The official re- 
ports show that Germany has sunk 
5,000 British merchant ships with the 



loss of 15,000 men, women and chil- 
dren—all murdered at sea without a 
chance for their lives. The British on 
their part sunk 500 German ships 
without the loss of a single life. While 
the German was trying to sink with- 
out a trace everything that floated up- 
on the high seas John Bull never fired 
a shot until he had first made provision 
for the safety of passengers and crews. 

While the people of the world were 
gaming a larger knowledge of the 
causes of this war, do you remember 
that phrase that the Germans and the 
pro-Germans— and let us never forget 
that the anti-British are always secretly 
pro-German— used to throw at us on 
every occasion? "What is the differ- 
ence," they would ask, "between Ger- 
man militarism and British navalism? ' 
The question was a very adroit one and 
for a long time during the period of 
America's supine neutrality it served 
its purpose in befogging the issue. But 
the answer is a very easy one. The 
difference between German militarism 
and British navalism is a state of mind. 
German militarism had for its purpose 
the destruction of human liberty while 
British navalism had for its purpose 
the defense of civilization. "World 
power or downfall" was the battle cry 
with which Germany set out to conquer 
the unsuspecting world, and the an- 
swer is a tragic downfall more com- 
plete and irremediable than has ever oc- 
curred in the history of mankind. The 
words of the ancient prophet Obadiah 
against autocracy and oppression stand 
m every age: "The pride of thine heart 
hath deceived thee. Though thou ex- 
alt thyself as the eagle, and though 
thou set thy nest among the stars, 
thence will I bring thee down, saith the 
Lord." We are approaching the final 
settlements of this tragedy, and the 
voices of the slaughtered dead cry out 
to us from their graves that the men 
who plotted this infamous murder and 
destruction shall be individually pun- 
ished before an outraged world. 

And what of America's part in this 
awful conflict? I remember one day 
on our visit to Windsor Castle that 
while we were looking around those 
stately gardens I said to our friendly 
guide: "Is not that vine on the wall a 



Virginia creeper?" *'Yes," he said, and 
then seeming to catch the symbolism 
that was in my mind he pointed to the 
top of the ancient tower, over which 
the great standard of England was 
floating, and said to me, "That flag, the 
flag of the British Empire, is held 
aloft on a staff of Oregon pine." I have 
a confident faith that John Bull and 
Uncle Sam have clasped hands now in 
a friendship that will never be broken, 
and with those two worthy gentlemen 
standing together the peace and civil- 
ization of the world ought to be safe. 

We in America must never forget 
that, while we were making our own 
too tardy preparation, the power which 
has held back the devastating armies of 
Germany from invading the American 
coast and transforming our beautiful 
and prosperous land into a desert 
waste, as they have done in Belgium 
and France, the power which has pro- 
tected our women from dishonor and 
our children from slaughter, the pov^^er 
which has prevented that awful catas- 
trophe from coming into the home and 
heart of every American is the in- 
domitable power of the British navy. 
And if I rightly understand the public 
opinion of this country, any proposal 
that may be made in the Peace Con- 
ference to limit the power of the Brit- 
ish Navy, or to substitute for Great 
Britain's humane conception of the 
freedom of the seas that system of 
piracy and murder which interprets 
Germany's conception of the freedom of 
the seas, will meet with the condemna- 
tion of the people of America. It has 
taken England's giant daughter a long 
time perhaps to find her soul — the per- 
iod of inaction made it seem a long time 
to som.e of us — ^but when America at 
last realized that liberty and civilization 
were actually suffering a progressive 
and rapid destruction at the hands of 
Germany, her heart turned with loyalty 
to the succor of the world and the res- 
cue of its people ; and she came forward 
with a full stride and took her place on 
the battle front and unwaveringly fed 
the precious lives of her sons into that 
furnace of Hell and death, in order that 
righteousness and peace and justice 
and the law might be redeemed. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRF<Jc 

wm. 



